MERCER COUNTY Officials open bids for building

One of two bids received for providing small buses has to be reviewed to see if it can be considered because it came in late.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MERCER -- Mercer County commissioners will be doing some selling and buying.
They opened two bids this week from people wanting to buy a county-owned building on Gooseberry Alley. They included a $28,000 bid from Atty. Ted Isoldi and a $25,101 bid from a group that included Frank and Sandy Lord, Richard and Grace Boggs, James and Ann Stranahan, Michael Bannon and Atty. Jarret Whalen. All are from Mercer. The bids were tabled for review. The building is excess property that the county has owned for decades and is using for storage.
Commissioners also opened two bids for 14-passenger handicapped-accessible, small transit buses, though Commissioner's Solicitor Lewis McEwen must determine whether one of the bids is allowed to be considered because it arrived after the deadline.
Brightbill Bodyworks of Lebanon offered three 14-passenger buses for $52,095 each or a total $156,285. Shephard Bros. of Canandaigua, N.Y., bid $51,448 per vehicle for a total $154,344.
Bid was late: Controller Dennis Songer of the Mercer County Community Transit Agency said that the bid from Shephard Bros. did not arrive until 9:55 a.m. Thursday, although the deadline was 4 p.m. Wednesday. He said the company called Wednesday and said FedEx had not picked up the bid package. Bill Jones of Mercer County Community Transit said that in such cases state authorities have always held that local officials can determine whether the bid is acceptable. Commissioners asked Atty. McEwen to review the statute and decide by the next meeting.
Other action: In other business, commissioners:
UAuthorized advertising for the replacement of the bridge on Robertson Road over Golden Run in Hermitage. Bridge Engineer Mark Miller said work should start in July and be finished by September.
UApproved farm leases for county-owned land effective until the end of the year with the following: Austin Rains, Mercer, 94.5 acres at $12.70 per acre; Pauline Marsh, Mercer, 17 acres at $20 per acre; and Mr. And Mrs. Carl Nixon, Mercer, three acres at $33.33 per acre.
UHired Anna Straughn as a school-based juvenile probation officer at $27,299 and approved unpaid internships for Mark Ramsey and Joisanne Rodgers for the Juvenile Probation and Domestic Relations departments, respectively.
UAnnounced that they received no bids for the sale of more than 190 voting machines that are no longer needed because of transition to a touch-screen system. The lack of bids frees the county to set a price and sell the machines to another county, they said.
In the salary board portion of the meeting, Voter Machine Custodian Frank Alessio's hourly rate was raised from $7 to $15 because of his status change from helper to full-time custodian.